The Fuss About Sam Spencer

Our cold open sketches this season has featured a timey wimey theme.

We're hopping around into various data scenarios across time.

Most of us have often wished or wondered about changing things by going into the past.

No matter what the sci-fi stories say, though, you really can't go back and change the past, at least not with current technologies.

But we can learn from the past.

This podcast talks a lot about data management, governance, and using data and AI, but none of what we're saying in this scenario is new.

Humanity has a great track record of doing dumb things with new technology.

The issues and missed expectations are all due to past situations experiencing things with other types of technologies.

We see no difference.

The promises of data and AI are being met with the harsh realities of poor content, poor quality, and leadership disengagement.

This goes back to my late friend Ken Orr, a masterful writer and commenter on technology in the 1970s and '80s.

He said, "New technologies have us develop bad stuff quicker than we've ever done before." And guess what? AI-generated code is developing bad systems even quicker than we could possibly imagine, and we're recalling all those coders we laid off too.

This begs the question, are we ever going to learn? I have children, and like many other parents, I give my children advice, and like many other parents, they've ignored the advice.

And this is the same dynamic as not learning from history.

But eventually, my kids have grown up, and they actually listen to their old man.

And my daughter said the other day, "That was great advice.

Thanks." I think it's time for this world of data and corporations and executives and boards of directors that want to use data and do great things with data to learn from the past, not ignore it.

The basic nuts and bolts that go with applying new technology to new things again.

I think it's time they remember lessons learned from total quality, Six Sigma safety programs.

None of this is rocket science.

Our guest today has dealt with this scenario head-on.

I hope you enjoy his story.

I think it's time that leadership of organizations grow up, get their heads out of old paradigms, and embrace the real aspects of data.

Make the world better, not just speed up old processes.

And in the meantime, be nice to each other.